Donald FagenThe Nightfly While billed as a solo album, this has everything there is to love about
Steely Dan’s lush jazz/rock fusions. (One
day I’m gonna sing the sample track as a duet, piano accompaniment.)
Maxine

Paul HindemithSonata for Viola & Piano, Op.11 N°4 I have a fantasy: this piece is being played in the late 1920s in a Berlin
café about 2am, after the customers have left, while the waiter
sweeps up. The melody veers raggedly from melancholy to a hysterical
romanticism. Superb late-night chill-out music. (Might give you the
chills.)
I Fantasie

Barb JungrChanson: The Space In Between I’d long loved Brel’s recordings of his own work without having more than a
vague sense of the lyrics. Nothing I’d heard in translation came even close
to the feeling. And then I heard Barb sing Brel in the translations she
commissioned from Des de Moor. If your French
won’t stretch to Brel — a big stretch — get him through Barb. Bonus track:
her original cover of Ray Davies’ “Waterloo
Sunset” from Bare. A song I knew well — but when
I heard Barb it was as if I heard it for the first time.
Ne Me Quitte PasWaterloo Sunset

Sarah MouleIt’s A Nice Thought New Yorker Fran Landesman and her bitter-sweet
humorous verse have been part of the London scene for decades. Now Simon Wallace has set a collection of her pieces,
sung here by his wife. Moule’s cool delivery perfectly complements the
biting lyrics, and Wallace’s arrangements sound like jazz standards.
Feet Do Your Stuff

Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare Scarcely known outside Italy, this band of early-music scholars performs
foot-stomping Italian folk music. The sample track is taken from the Antologia album, which I haven’t seen in this country.
Tarantella di S.Lucia

Mary Margaret O’HaraMiss America Until the recent film score, the only album
O’Hara recorded of her own material, this 1988 album attracted a cult
following, especially among musicians. Loosely based in jazz, but wholly
sui generis, singer-songwriter M2OH gets in your head and
stays there.
Year in Song

Eddi ReaderThe Songs of Robert Burns Robert Burns wrote great songs — who knew? Glasgwegian singer Eddi Reader brings it all to life, with this warm,
happy collection. Quite the sunniest album I’ve heard since John James’ 1970 gem Morning
Brings The Light.
Jamie Come Try Me

Soft MachineThird This music belongs to that secret category of music you dance to alone at
home. The essential Soft Machine album, with the last of Robert Wyatt’s singing with them. I wear out
recordings of this, but never my appetite for it.

Steeleye SpanThe Best of Steeleye Span English and Celtic folk songs connect to a vigorous, rhythmic dance
tradition quite distinct from the African influences of rock and blues. It
electrifies (in both senses) just as well as the blues did.
Cam Ye O’er Frae France

Tom WaitsMule Variations Hard to pick one album to represent Waits’ œuvre, but if I had to,
this would be it. He seems to have re-integrated the harsh pipe-banging
derelicts’ orchestra of Swordfishtrombones and
Bone Machine with the sweetness of his first
albums. This culminates in the weary peace evoked in “Take It With Me” and
“Pony”.
Get Behind the MuleTake It With Me

Robert WyattMid Eighties On the cover notes for the original Soft Machine
album, Wyatt was credited by an interviewer with singing a Charlie Parker
sax solo note for note. Surrounded by his own compositions on this album,
this standard exhibits his frail, enchanting tenor voice, and is my
favourite version of the song.
’Round Midnight